Debt and Budget (Reset) plan

shell16

Evening All

I've updated my total and really pleased I've managed to pay an extra £200 in addition to my usual payments this month. 

I get paid on Friday do im looking to start adding again to EF. Really need to build this up. 

I'm carrying on with surveys,  which have really helped in paying off a good £90 so far. I've joined a couple of other surveys  sites too, not as good as my usual one but cleared £5 already. 

I will break into the next thousand this month so I'm really spurred on by this and quite excited too 🤣  Debt busting is quite addictive!!

I've also got to analyse my spending this month and prepare a new budget for the new pay period.  I know the red lights on eating out really needs to stop! Now my DD's are back at school this should hopefully be easier this month. 

Well thats all for now. 
Shell

shell16

Morning All

So Ive completed a month of scrutinising every penny!  Wow, its scary what we have been spending on....nothing!!  Absolutely nothing to show for all the spare cash we would have had.

I actually sat the kids down last week and showed them exactly where we had been spending, sweets, shopping, eating out etc.  My youngest, bless her said she would help me more round the house and if I would pay her some pocket money she wouldn't ask for anything more.  Dont get me wrong, ive offered this to both my kids for a long time but they haven't ever been interested!

Im on with my 2nd month of scrutinising every penny we spend.  I did get a little confused last month as I have an App on my phone telling me what I spend plus I was also looking at my online banking and the 2 never seemed to marry up, think it was the headings I put for my budget on the spending app!  Ive now labelled a tin with receipts, which we are putting everything we spend in there, even a cash withdrawal slip written on back as to why it was withdrawn!  Im going to empty the tin on a Friday and enter in what we are spending.

Some good news is all my big DD's have gone out in addition to my EF, Holidays, and Christmas at £75 a month for each category.

Survey money is going on my CC1.  I have £208.98 left until my 0% expires on 30/11/21 and my standard payments for October and November are £204.20, Ive got a pending payment from a survey for £5.36 to pay to CC1 so this will clear that balance in time!  CC2 balance is 1651.94 and 0% ends 30/09/22. If I make the usual payment of £102.10 I will have paid off £1021 of that balance by the time 0% ends, so I need to chuck more cash that way before i start getting charged interest.  Just for clarity CC1 and CC2 are same card with differing 0% deals.  CC3 is my biggest debt on card and at the moment Im just making minimum payments of around £93 a month with an interest rate of 3.9% which is for just under 3 years, a deal which I took up from initial 25.55%.  Once I get EF fund upto £500, I will use the £75 a month towards paying either CC1 or CC3.

All totals updated in my signature, really pleased to see that im now well into the next thousand bracket with 8.5% of the debt I had paid off for ever!

Thanks for reading!

BlueJ94

shell16 said:

Morning All

So Ive completed a month of scrutinising every penny!  Wow, its scary what we have been spending on....nothing!!  Absolutely nothing to show for all the spare cash we would have had.

I actually sat the kids down last week and showed them exactly where we had been spending, sweets, shopping, eating out etc.  My youngest, bless her said she would help me more round the house and if I would pay her some pocket money she wouldn't ask for anything more.  Dont get me wrong, ive offered this to both my kids for a long time but they haven't ever been interested!

Im on with my 2nd month of scrutinising every penny we spend.  I did get a little confused last month as I have an App on my phone telling me what I spend plus I was also looking at my online banking and the 2 never seemed to marry up, think it was the headings I put for my budget on the spending app!  Ive now labelled a tin with receipts, which we are putting everything we spend in there, even a cash withdrawal slip written on back as to why it was withdrawn!  Im going to empty the tin on a Friday and enter in what we are spending.

Some good news is all my big DD's have gone out in addition to my EF, Holidays, and Christmas at £75 a month for each category.

Survey money is going on my CC1.  I have £208.98 left until my 0% expires on 30/11/21 and my standard payments for October and November are £204.20, Ive got a pending payment from a survey for £5.36 to pay to CC1 so this will clear that balance in time!  CC2 balance is 1651.94 and 0% ends 30/09/22. If I make the usual payment of £102.10 I will have paid off £1021 of that balance by the time 0% ends, so I need to chuck more cash that way before i start getting charged interest.  Just for clarity CC1 and CC2 are same card with differing 0% deals.  CC3 is my biggest debt on card and at the moment Im just making minimum payments of around £93 a month with an interest rate of 3.9% which is for just under 3 years, a deal which I took up from initial 25.55%.  Once I get EF fund upto £500, I will use the £75 a month towards paying either CC1 or CC3.

All totals updated in my signature, really pleased to see that im now well into the next thousand bracket with 8.5% of the debt I had paid off for ever!

Thanks for reading!

Wow well done so far!! I agree with the spending money on nothing, most of us do it Good luck on your journey! I'll be following along

rigare11a

Hi Shell 

Amazing updates so far - let me know how the tin receipt thing works out, 

Thanks 

shell16

Afternoon all

Just a quick update.

I have decided that all my 'save the change' which currently goes into a savings account, im going to use on CC1 and CC2 this month and next so an extra £24 will be transferred over this and next month.  Im confident that CC1 will be paid in full by the time my 0% interest deal expires with some being paid off CC2.  My DD will go out 1st week October.  The balance on my August statement for CC1 was £495.   CC1 & CC2 both same card with differing 0% deals.  CC2 will then start to get tackled  and I think I will carry on with transferring the 'save the change' to my CC2 which averages about £12 per month.

My Receipt Tin is working pretty well.  Im updating on 2 platforms at the minute with spending, an App and my spreadsheet.  So far they are both pretty close to marrying up which is good news! I have had to add notes to my App though as I thought that I could split up a receipt into different categories but I cant it will only let me divide by 2 to 2 different categories. 

Ive had to spend around another £70 on my youngest DD school trip this weekend which I wasnt planning on, but on the whole everything is going ok at the moment, no silly purchases!

Surveys are definitely slowing down 
I have earned a total of £102.13 which has all been transferred to debt and I suppose this is something I would have had to find elsewhere so still a positive!

I cant believe since starting the diary, that I have paid off just over £1200!  Im really happy with this!

On a different note I found out today that Im going to have to go back into the office from 13th October.  It is 1 day a week only (other than possibly ad hoc ones I need to go in for) so I suppose thats something but I have worked from home since 13/03/2020 and quite got used to no travelling and spending more time with my family, feeling pretty nervous about it all to be honest! .  On that 1 day I will be spending around £15 to £16 travel/parking so will be anew cost to take account of.

Thats all for now, thankyou to those that are carrying on reading this and tagging along on my debt free journey!

rigare11a

On a different note I found out today that Im going to have to go back into the office from 13th October.  It is 1 day a week only (other than possibly ad hoc ones I need to go in for) so I suppose thats something but I have worked from home since 13/03/2020 and quite got used to no travelling and spending more time with my family, feeling pretty nervous about it all to be honest! .  On that 1 day I will be spending around £15 to £16 travel/parking so will be anew cost to take account of.

Similar thing for me on the back to the office will be significantly reduced but still a day where I will have to consider a bit of extra cost. I have not been back either since March. Will be a shift for sure! 

shell16

Evening DFW's

Just a quick one. I've decided to round my balance on my current account to nearest 0 or 5 at the end of the day. I'm already transferring the save the change so this will add a little more to paying off debt. 
I've paid CC1 (&CC2) direct debit today.  Transferred £1.09 from rounding to CC1 (&CC2). 
Not alot I know but I now feel in between transferring survey money and my Direct Debit savings (from cancelled DD insurance policies) im making a payment a day and clearing debt forever!

Thanks for reading.
Shell

shell16

Morning All

My CC3 payment is due tomorrow which has a small APR charge of 3.9% until May 2024.  So will be unable to update signature until I know what interest is being applied which will be end of next week when my new statement is released.  Once I know I should have paid off at least 10% of my debt forever since starting my journey In August 2021.

I have an App for snowballing and its showing CC1 (&CC2) I have paid off 25% of the debt since August from the starting balance, which is fab! I was using over 61% of the credit available!  On my last statement in September, I had £1860.92 of which £208.98 was CC1 and £1651.94 CC2. I have made payments of £246.94 since September so CC1 is done, cleared, finito!!  Just to confirm CC1 and CC2 are same card with differing 0% Deals and balances.  I will update signature once i have posted this.

Im so flippin chuffed, this is a real boost to my debt busting journey. I need to concentrate on the balance of £1613.98 before my 0% deal ends in September 2022. I currently pay £105 a month anyway so will make at least £1155 payments upto and including September 2022 and will be short of clearing by £458.98, so need to absolutely chuck everything at that from now!

This is addictive 

shell16

Dear Diary

Im nearly through with month 2 of scrutinising every penny!

This month so far (touch wood) has been a whole lot better than last.  At the end of the last pay month I was into the overdraft by around £500.  Ive got another week with around £77 to come out which will leave around £50 in the black, but thats spending nothing further at all which i honestly cant see happening as something will crop up!

Im still going to finish alot better this month than last so im really happy about this.  Hopefully when I get paid in just over a weeks time, I will definately be in the black (so long as nothing horrible crops up thats unexpected!)

So in terms of what Im spending which I want to stop completely/reduce or just generally keep an eye on are the following:

1. Me and DH vape, but we have been getting the 3 bottles at £10 from local shop (30ml total).  We have spent so far £42 (£2 was on 2b bottles from £1 shop but they were awful!).  We need to go to proper vape shop and for 50ml at £10 will be a whole lot cheaper and we shouldnt have to go as often
2. Keep reducing the eating out.  So far spent £127.10 compared to £176.91 in August.  To be fair £100 of this was on a weekend away in our Motorhome.
3. Im ashamed to say I have a habit of spending stupid amounts on google play!  Im at £55.84 so far this month and in August I spent £45.94.  Im absolutly gutted especially that im on here trying to pay off my debts.  I NEED TO STOP, FULL STOP!
4. Fuel for vehicles are also up this month, but we did put some into the Motorhome at beginning of this pay month to go away.  Usually spend around £100.  This will go up from next week as Im back at work 1 day a week to start and will use car to travel to and from train station which is 15 mile round trip.
5. I need to factor in Travel costs to new budget going forwards, need to check train ticket cost as not travelled in 18 months and also car parking charge.
6. When previously I was working in the office I would usually buy a coffee at the train station and then another when I got to work (we have a Costa franchise in our office!) and then buy lunch.  I need to look at that tool which shows you how much you spend over the year by doing these things and will demotiviate me into spending!  
7. Im roughly spending between £55 and £57 a week on grocery for a family of 4.  Im sure the prices are going up!  I would love to aim for £50 a week, I know its not much but every little bit helps!

So to summarise, alot better managing money this month, but I need to watch my spending in certain categories still!

Im a bit worried about Christmas this year to be honest.  Im doing ok paying down debt but Christmas is a huge strain on anyones finances!  Im really going to try and spend less this year.  Spent a total of £1866 last year!!!!  Ludicrous!  Im aiming for £1250 this year which I know is still a chunk, but I will try my hardest to not go over that limit.

Some postive things I have done already:

1. Cancelled a Direct Debit I have been paying for years and wasnt fit for purpose! Saving 68.39 a month
2. £12 per month (average) Save the Change being paid off CC2 debt
3. £7 per month saving on SIM for DD2 by cancelling an extra  which she doesnt use anymore! This is new so will again go to CC2 Debt.
4. £10 per month saving on my milk delivery, just have once a week now rather than 3 deliveries
5. Make a payment a day by rounding my current account to nearest 0 or 5 and transfer to CC2 debt.
6. Continuing with Surveys where I can to pay CC2 debt

Thats about all for now! 

shell16

Sorry Diary, Not updated in a while!

Well last week set me back £650 to the dentist!  I had a fall and my teeth got the brunt!  Luckily I do have dental cover but had to pay up front, should hopefully be able to claim back around half hopefully!

I didnt finish great on my current account, ended up around £340 overdrawn for pay period Sept, but I was £520 overdrawn in pay period August.

Payday today, with DH payday tomorrow signature updated with new totals, Loan payment comes out in a couple of days too so that should see Loan figure drop into next thousand down. 

Added payments to Emergency Fund, Christmas Fund and Holiday Fund.

It was First day back in the office last week, now have to go in 1 day a week.  Good news is train fare is now £7.60 plus £4 parking which is down £5 from 18 months ago.  Bad news there was no restaurant open in my building so had to buy from shop which set me back £3.  On the plus side they do have a costa vending machine now at £1.50 but i do need to watch that spending, need to check my demotivator tool!  This week im taking some latte sachets for my drinks, and a packed lunch now that I know whats what at work.

Surveys have really dried up, not alot at all, so any debt payments will come from rounding down of current account each day, on top of my Direct debit savings of £70 and saving on my milk delivery of £10.

Its coming up to half term again, so need to keep an eye on spending next week, In August spent a small fortune on little bits of eating out with my girls!

New Budget set today, need to really start cutting back and making savings where I can, I need to find £650 for what I had to pay dentist as this gone on CC3, its on full 25.55% interest as new spending, but bulk of balance is on 3.9%.

I think thats about all for now.
Shell